UPDATE: Dan Patrick, Donna Cambell jump on GOP anti-ordinance train

UPDATE (Sept. 5): In an interview with Sen. Donna Campbell on Tuesday evening, she criticized the ordinance in San Antonio as government overreach.

“Our Judeo-Christian values are under assault and I’m not going to let that stand,” Campbell said. “We have the right and religious freedom to express ourselves. When the government moves outside the proper bounds of the primary role, especially in order to legislate societal norms, they’re on shaky ground.

Really it’s a few, just a few advocates, of tolerance,” Campbell said. They are trying to criminalize faith and traditional values of the majority of Texans. Tolerance is going too far in this instance.”

When asked if she condoned or condemned Chan’s anti-gay comments, Campbell said, “Those are her comments, I’m just going to let her defend those.”

UPDATE (Aug. 29): State Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, who represents a portion of northern Bexar County, in an open letter to San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro Thursday blasted the proposed ordinance. Read the full letter HERE.

“San Antonio is an exceptional city in which every individual should feel welcome, and I believe that’s the intention of the authors of the ordinance” Campbell wrote. “However, by alienating the majority of Texans who believe in traditional marriage and values, it is having the opposite effect.”

ORIGINAL POST:

Sen. Dan Patrick Thursday joined a small chorus of Republican officials slamming a proposed ordinance in San Antonio that would add protections for sexual orientation and gender identity to the city’s nondiscrimination code.

Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston

“The proposed San Antonio ordinance runs counter to the Holy Bible and the United States Constitution,” Patrick, who is running for lieutenant governor, said in a written statement. “I hope the San Antonio City Council considers the harm this ordinance will perpetrate on those who share my faith as well as the inevitable litigation before adopting this politically motivated measure.”

Patrick, R-Houston, did not refer to any of the similar ordinances already enacted in the state’s five other most populous cities, including his hometown. Other statewide candidates chiming in on the hot issue during campaign season include Attorney General Greg Abbott and the three Republicans vying to replace him. Those four candidates refused to discuss the other Texas ordinances when pressed for a recent Express-News story.